follow you down
by christeeny
Summary: Tag to 1x11. It had been a month since Clarke had returned to camp. A month since a search party led by Bellamy had broken through into the grounders' territory, intent on an offensive attack, and stumbled upon their blonde medic chained up in the remote torture area, bloody and beaten, barely hanging onto consciousness.


AN: Just something that was stuck in my brain, so I decided to jot it down quickly before 1x12. Not edited, so I apologize for any errors in it. Hope you enjoy!

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It had been a month since Clarke had returned to camp. A month since a search party led by Bellamy had broken through into the grounders' territory, intent on an offensive attack, and stumbled upon their blonde medic chained up in the remote torture area, bloody and beaten, barely hanging onto consciousness. She'd been so delirious, in fact, that it took a while for her to believe that they were actually there and not a figment of her imagination.

Half of the group peeled away to take out the grounders in the area (luckily, with Clarke as the only prisoner there, there weren't many around), while the other three stayed with Clarke. Bellamy was the one who'd helped her to her feet as the two others smashed the chains attached to her wrists, freeing her at last. Bellamy's wide, shocked eyes and slack jaw told her that they hadn't come to rescue her: he—they—had thought her to be dead. At the time, Clarke hadn't taken any time to dwell on that, simply collapsing heavily into Bellamy's arms. He'd whispered her name—her real name, not Princess—in a voice filled with awe, guilt, and something else she couldn't place. She'd blacked out after that, opening her eyes again to the ceiling of a tent.

Clarke blinked, squinting her eyes in confusion as her mind woke up from the buzzing haze of her deep slumber. Her head fell to the side and her brow furrowed as she took in her surroundings. It was a tent back at camp, sure, but not hers. Slowly, she pushed herself up to recline back on her elbows, wincing at the aching protest her body gave—both her muscles from not being used in so long, as well as the bruises and lesions scattered across her skin from the torture she'd been put through at the hands of the Grounders. A sudden flash of blinding light caused Clarke to recoil, her eyelids slamming shut as a low groan rumbled from her throat.

"Ah, welcome back to the land of the living, Princess."

Another groan slipped past Clarke's lips and she pried her eyes open again cautiously. "Bellamy," she croaked. "Just the friendly face I'd been hoping to see." Even with her voice rough from disuse, she still managed to convey a scathing tone of sarcasm in her words.

Bellamy stood at the entrance flap to his tent, arms crossed lightly across his chest. A smirk curled his lips. He slowly crossed over to where she lay on his cot, sitting down on the edge by her hips.

"Glad to see you're already feeling like your old self," he retorted lightly. His eyes, however, looked troubled as he gave her a thorough once-over, scanning her as if to be sure she was, in fact, alright. "How you feeling?"

Clarke shrugged, immediately regretting the movement as a sharp hiss escaped her mouth. Bellamy tensed, hand shooting up to hover uncertainly by her shoulder.

"A bit sore," she admitted. "But I guess that's to be expected, right?"

Bellamy's chocolate eyes swirled, darkening almost to pure black. "They won't get away with this," he promised darkly. "The grounders who took you, who…who did this to you. We're going to make them pay."

"You can't," Clarke muttered. Bellamy opened his mouth to argue, but Clarke shook her head and he snapped his jaw shut. "They're lethal, Bellamy. They…their kids. They teach them to be warriors when they're young. They're all—all trained. Trained killers," she managed to breathe out.

"I don't care," Bellamy said. "We've already started planning a counter-attack, and we're being smart about it." A slow smile tugged at his lips. "You'd be impressed."

Clarke squinted. "Already planning? How…how long have I been out? How long since you found me?"

Bellamy's jaw twitched. "Four—no, five days." Clarke's expression must have changed, because he quickly clarified: "You woke up a few times in the meantime, but you were never really…awake. One of your cuts was infected so you had a fever and were pretty out of it even when you were conscious."

"Infected?" Clarke repeated incredulously. She craned her neck to look across her body, even though the movement pained her. "Where?"

"Here," Bellamy said, reaching over to grab the hem of her shirt and lift it ever-so-slightly, revealing a bandage plastered across her stomach. Stupidly, Clarke felt goose bumps erupt across her skin from the mere brush of his fingers. She chalked it up to surprise. "It wasn't a huge cut or anything, but O and Raven had seen you working before and were able to clean it out right away. It finally cleared up yesterday and your fever broke. Had us pretty worried there for a while, though, Princess." Clarke started to respond, but Bellamy cut off anything she was going to say. "I'll go get you some water, maybe something to eat? I'll be right back."

Before she could say anything, Bellamy had stood up and slipped back out the flap of his tent.

That was three weeks prior. Now, Clarke was fully recovered. A few days after she woke up, a group of their best fighters (of course, led by Bellamy again) set off and recovered Finn and Monty from the grounders' camp, just in time before Finn's execution (Monty's capture had luckily set them back). One of their guys had been killed in the attempt, three others injured (including Bellamy). Clarke had treated them as best as she could, though everyone was trying to make her take it easy. She ended up spending most of the time confined to a cot on the drop ship, directing Octavia and Raven about how to treat the patients from there. She did get a look at the injured herself, taking some time to scold Bellamy for managing to get an arrow in his calf as the group had just reached the edge of grounder territory on their way back home. Finn and Monty had looked like hell, having been tortured just like she had been, but luckily they hadn't had any infected wounds and had recovered quickly after being treated.

After that, things had remained relatively calm around the camp. The air was still tense, buzzing with unspoken thoughts as everyone awaited the seemingly inevitable grounder attack in retaliation, but it never came. Clarke had avoided Finn as if her life depended on it, not ready to dive back into where they stood or how things were between him and Raven (though she'd noticed a tremendous amount of tension between them, as well as a strange sort of awkwardness between Raven and Bellamy that she couldn't begin to explain). And she had barely spoken to Bellamy since their conversation when she'd woken up. Aside from their usual banter and arguments about what to do, she rarely saw her co-leader.

Instead, Clarke focused on the camp. Finding new plants to use for treatment of different ailments, scouting out possible bunkers or sources of food or weapons, helping educate The 100 on weaponry, and the like. It kept her busy, kept her mind off of everything else. Of course, she couldn't escape it all the time: at night, she'd wake up in a cold sweat, the life draining from the grounder's eyes burned into the back of her eyelids, the metallic tang of his blood spilled over her hands filling her nostrils. She hadn't told anyone about what she'd done, about how far she'd gone to survive.

Now, a month after being rescued, Clarke was outside with everyone as the camp celebrated a great hunting expedition (three large deer taken down in one day) with a bonfire cookout. After their feast, the festivities had really kicked into gear, with Monty's moonshine flowing steadily. Drunken antics had ensued, complete with dancing, singing, and plenty of sloppy hookups. As the night wore on, people began to meander off to the tents, drunkenly collapsing into their tents (many in pairs). Clarke continued to sit by the dwindling fire, her first and only cup of moonshine half-full in her hands. Despite the appeal of clearing her mind and dulling her thoughts with alcohol, she knew there needed to be at least a few clear heads in the morning that weren't too hungover to function. Bellamy's words to her echoed in her mind: it really wasn't easy being in charge.

"Having fun, Princess?"

Speak of the devil—or, rather, think of him—Bellamy dropped down to sit beside her. Clarke cut her eyes over to look at him, surprised to see his eyes looking clear, not red and glazed over. Apparently she wasn't the only one who'd prioritized the camp's needs over the appeal of a carefree, drunken night.

"It's good for the camp, having a night like this. Keeps everyone's morale up," Clarke responded noncommittally.

Bellamy's eyebrows rose infinitesimally. "That's a real diplomatic answer. I didn't ask if it was a good night for the camp; I asked if _you_ were having a good time."

Clarke shrugged. "There isn't much room for fun when you're in charge." She raised her cup and dumped the rest of the contents on the ground as if to prove her point.

Bellamy sighed, leaning back on his hands. "Yeah, there really isn't." They both fell silent, the only sounds being the crackling of the fire and distant laughter as the last of the partiers disappeared into their tents. "How are you?" Bellamy suddenly asked, his voice quiet. Clarke looked over at him in surprise, and he met her gaze. "I mean, after...everything."

"I don't know. I'm...I'm better," Clarke finally murmured.

"Good," Bellamy said.

Again, silence fell between them. They sat next to each other as the fire burned down, embers popping as the flames steadily died out. Out of the blue, Clarke's mind traveled to when Bellamy found her in the Grounder's torture camp, the shock clear on his face. She hadn't stopped to dwell on it before, but suddenly, it was consuming her.

"You didn't come searching for me," she blurted out.

Bellamy squinted in confusion at her random outburst. "What?"

"When you found me at the grounders' camp, you hadn't come looking for me. You were surprised to find me there."

Bellamy slowly nodded. "No, I—we didn't think we'd find you there. It was completely unexpected."

"Why?" Clarke felt tears pricking her eyes, but blinked them away. "Why were you surprised? Why didn't you come for me when I was taken?"

Bellamy swallowed, hard, turning his gaze to study the dimly glowing embers that remained of the bonfire. "We…I…we didn't know you'd been taken, not at first. When you and Finn didn't come back with the rest, people just assumed…"

Clarke barked out a humorless laugh. "Let me guess—Raven thought we'd snuck off to be together?"

Bellamy ignored her comment. "When we realized something was off and did go looking for you, we found Myles, badly hurt, and he told us that you'd been…taken. We didn't think that there was any way you were still alive, and Myles needed to get back to camp to be treated." He ran a hand over his face, rubbing his jaw, and his eyes finally lifted to meet hers again. "If I'd thought there was even the smallest possibility that you were alive, I would've gotten a team together and gone for you without a second thought. You have to believe that."

Clarke's lips lifted in a slight smile. "Yeah, I know. You did the right thing, though—it's what I would've done, too. I'm sorry I said anything."

"Don't be sorry, Clarke," Bellamy insisted. "I'm sorry we didn't get to you sooner. Sorry you had to go through that."

Clarke nodded. "I killed one," she whispered, so quietly she could barely even hear herself.

"A grounder?"

She nodded, her throat feeling tight as her eyes welled up again. "I had to escape so I…I slit his throat," she choked out, "with a scalpel. And then…then…I put my hand—" she lifted her hand up, staring at it incredulously, "I put it over his mouth so he couldn't make a sound. And I just…watched him as he bled out." Clarke shook with a repressed sob. "The scariest part was, it didn't even faze me. It was like it wasn't even me doing it. I've never felt less human in my life."

Bellamy's arm came around her, grasping her shoulder and pulling her into him. She relaxed into his embrace, burying her head in his chest as the tears finally escaped. They sat like that for a while, until Clarke's eyes ran dry and her body slowly stopped shaking. Bellamy's hands, which had been stroking her hair and back, reached up to grasp either side of her face, pulling her back to look into his eyes.

"Brave Princess," he murmured, so quietly Clarke wasn't sure he meant for her to hear. Unlike the first time he'd said that to her, this time his voice was colored with admiration and awe. "You did what you had to do to survive, okay?" His thumbs rubbed across her cheeks, wiping away at the dried tear tracks that crossed them. "It's not easy to take someone's life, but the fact that you're still thinking about it, that it's affected you, that's good." Clarke shot him a frustrated look and he smiled gently at her. "It means you _are_ still human, Clarke."

"Why are you being so…nice to me?" Clarke whispered.

"Look, when I killed Dax, it got to me. You know that," he said, raising his eyebrows, "because you're the one who calmed me down afterwards. I figure I might as well return the favor." His smile widened into a grin, and Clarke couldn't resist a smile stretching across her own face. "And I'll tell you what you told me then, too: this camp needs you. _I_ need you. And hey, we're in this together, okay?"

Clarke nodded, and suddenly realized how close they were. Her face was mere inches from Bellamy's, his hands still cradling her cheeks. She could feel herself flush at the realization, but she didn't make a move to pull away, instead allowing her eyes to flicker down to his mouth. Bellamy's eyes darkened as his tongue slipped out to lick his lips.

"Clarke..." he murmured, one hand slipping down to her neck.

There had always been electricity between them. From the first day, energy had buzzed tangibly in the air, first in the form of frustration, later as mutual respect, and more recently as some other crackling sort of electricity that Clarke couldn't identify. She still didn't know for sure what to call it, but she didn't want to ignore it any longer. So she surged forward, allowing her lips to brush against Bellamy's softly, cautiously. His breath escaped his mouth in a huff and he remained frozen for a moment before his lips responded, moving against hers. His hand tightened around the nape of her neck, pulling her even closer, as her own hand tangled in his hair.

They broke apart after a few moments, breathing heavily, and noticed that the fire had finally died out, leaving them cloaked in darkness. Bellamy let out a long breath, and then stood up, his hand grasping Clarke's and pulling her up with him. They walked back to the tents in comfortable silence, and Bellamy led her to the flap leading to her tent. She racked her brain for something to say, but he simply leaned down and captured her lips in another, lingering kiss.

"Goodnight, Princess," he murmured softly.

Clarke smiled at him, squeezing his hand gratefully. "Goodnight. And thank you, Bellamy."

He smiled back at her, none of his usual cockiness in his expression, and he nodded at her, rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand, and turned to walk off to his own tent. Clarke slipped inside her tent and quickly went to bed. As she lay in her cot, she replayed the night in her head, trying to make sense of it. She could never have predicted it, her and Bellamy—from the first day they'd been at each other's throats, but she supposed they'd grown past that, found that they complimented each other well and balanced each other out. Though she still wasn't sure exactly where they stood now, she didn't regret a thing.

And for the first time in a month, Clarke slept a dreamless sleep.


End file.
